I am about to get a new monitor. Any thoughts on this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116084

Is 1920x1200 a normal native resolution for a monitor of that size? (28") $500 at costco, btw. Thanks.

7/25/2008 1:26:47 AM

most monitors I've seen that run that native resolution are 24" because I know there are 30" monitors that run 2560*1600.

7/25/2008 8:10:24 AM

20-22 are 1680 by 1050
24-28 are 1920 by 1200
30 are 2560 by 1600

is the usual standard. This obviously doesn't apply to laptop LCDs considering you can get 15.4" laptops with 1920 by 1200 displays.

7/25/2008 9:33:37 AM

Okay. Thanks.

7/25/2008 12:38:22 PM

^^Why is that? I find that weird that most laptops have better resolution than LCD monitors for desktops.

7/26/2008 9:47:09 AM

Ok my ram runs at a default of 800mhz.


I just went into DRAM Frequency[AUTO] in my BIOS Seetings and changed it to DDR2-1066mhz.

Is this all I have to do to get the RAM to run at 1066mhz?

[Edited on July 26, 2008 at 12:04 PM. Reason : ]

7/26/2008 12:04:25 PM

^^Well you usually sit closer to a laptop then you do a desktop monitor so it makes sense to have a higher resolution.

7/26/2008 2:48:22 PM

Does anyone else have the ASUS P5Q Mobo?

7/27/2008 6:59:13 PM

just bought a cheap e1200 dual core cpu for my raid server. Pretty sure it's good enough for a storage server with not much load time. Might buy a raid card to do raid 6. Also, how the hell do you make cat 6 cables? I'm having a hard ass time trying to crimp the ends with the inner walls. Although, I haven't made cat 5 cables in a few years.

7/27/2008 8:23:56 PM

I have an ASUS P5Q Pro.

I need one or two case fans to mount in this case: http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?category_id=19&product_id=2709.

I'm looking for something quiet that moves as much air as possible. The stock fans in the case are pretty quiet and I'm going to keep them and add one or two fans to the top and/or side of the case.

Any recommendations?

How much should I expect my core temps to drop on a Q6600 OC'd to 3.2GHz by adding case fans?

7/27/2008 10:48:09 PM

depends on where you place them and how your current airflow is setup. Don't expect a large % to drop, but I'd say 1-2 C isn't out of the question. Are you running an aftermarket heatsink (assuming)?

7/27/2008 11:12:07 PM

Hyper TX2

If I get two, I'll put one on top and one on the side. The question is which way to mount them. One to pull air in and one to pull air out, or both to pull air out?

7/28/2008 1:11:55 AM

usually you'd flow the intake from the front and flow to the back.

7/28/2008 4:04:24 AM

Also, pull air in from the lower part of the case, and blow the warmer air out the top...

7/28/2008 10:47:07 AM

Configure SATA as IDE or AHCI, which one is smarter?

it's an opition in my bios.

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 6:25 PM. Reason : ]

7/28/2008 6:25:41 PM

^if you have a sata driver installed than AHCI, if not then IDE, unless it's Vista which has native AHCI, then you're fine and should choose AHCI

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 6:53 PM. Reason : .]

7/28/2008 6:52:42 PM

It's Vista-64 bit. It says in BIOS it's in IDE, so you are saying I should switch it AHCI?

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 6:55 PM. Reason : ]

7/28/2008 6:54:42 PM

and would it require me to format?

7/28/2008 7:38:57 PM

I think so, but I'm not 100% sure on that

7/29/2008 10:21:15 AM

no, changing it will not require a format, it has nothing to do with the data on the drive, it is just asking what type of interface to emulate, either IDE or SATA, obviously you want a SATA drive to perform like a SATA, otherwise you would've bought an IDE drive.

7/29/2008 10:54:14 AM

dont you sometimes have to change it to emulate IDE to load the os?

7/29/2008 11:11:18 AM

only if it's Windows XP and only if you don't have a SATA driver

7/29/2008 11:31:52 AM

so do you guys think i can do better than this?

7/29/2008 12:51:50 PM

I wouldn't miss out on those instant savings of almost $4k!

7/29/2008 4:59:35 PM

Should I go with Intel or AMD? I'm thinking Phenom X4 would be a good choice as the newer socket AM3 processors will be backwards compatible with AM2+ sockets so upgrading later would be possible.

7/29/2008 5:09:15 PM

Quote :

"It's Vista-64 bit. It says in BIOS it's in IDE, so you are saying I should switch it AHCI?"

Did you change it to AHCI? What happened?

7/29/2008 10:15:01 PM

So now that I am about to be in a new and substantially more permanent home I am in the market for a new desktop. I have been trying to catch up on current technologies but it's pretty cumbersome. I figure someone out there has a decent handle on what's good these days.
Purpose: Gaming first and foremost, streaming music, web browsing
Price: Not really a factor but I don't want to get too retarded

Here are some things that I have run across that I read are decent. I just need to fill in some holes and make sure they will all work together.

Video Card:
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121253
Either that one or the 4870. My plans are to get two of whichever for CrossFire.

Monitor:
ViewSonic 22" VW2240w 1860x1050 LCD
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/lcddisplays/xseries/VX2240w/

Processor:
? From what I hear I will be fine with Dual Core to not bother with Quad Core at this time.

Motherboard:
?

RAM:
? Looking at doing up to 4GB. I always heard that Corsair was good. Is this still true? What about Crucial?

Optical Drive:
? Although I don't really burn CDs or DVDs really but something decent would be nice.

Power Supply:
? Obviously something that can handle a beefy computer. Maybe something in the 1000w range? I was trying to read through http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3359&p=4 but I can't really make heads or tails of it in terms of what to go with. I am also thinking about the addition of an independent cooling system but I have no idea how to go about setting one up nor what to purchase.

Tower:
?

OS:
Vista 64-bit As much as I hate feeding the Microsoft giant I might as well get with the times.

As you can see I am leaning toward AMD this go-round. I just got some good preliminary recommendations and I figured they were comparable to Intel/nVidia SLI. If there is something that I missed or someone can come up with something better then please feel free to lend some advice. Thanks.





[Edited on July 30, 2008 at 2:27 AM. Reason : I hate you, Bill Gates]

7/30/2008 2:04:53 AM

^If price isn't a problem, go with Intel over AMD. 1000watts is a little to extreme.

7/30/2008 7:32:00 AM

I was doing some reading on Anandtech last night and it seems like Intel does have better performing processors and ATI has better GPUs. Ugh.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3293&p=8

7/30/2008 7:36:52 AM

^^1000w isn't "too" extreme if you are planning on 2x 48xx in crossfire, they are about 300W each at full load

Corsair, G.skill, OCZ, Crucial for memory
Corsair, Thermaltake, Antec, OCZ for power supplies.
Samsung, ASUS, Sony, Lite-On for optical drives
(samsung/sony are most silent, you need one of these BTW if you are going to install Vista - preferrably)

Anything Antec for case, I like the P180/P182/Solo the best, some like the nine-hundred and sonata

Go Intel Core2Duo

7/30/2008 10:51:46 AM

Missed the crossfire.

7/30/2008 1:49:40 PM

Quote :

"I was doing some reading on Anandtech last night and it seems like Intel does have better performing processors and ATI has better GPUs. Ugh."

AMD/ATI has slightly better performing GPUs for the money. Nvidia is still way ahead AMD in pure performance. So if price isn't a problem you could get 2 GTX 280s, which will smack down 2 4870s.

7/30/2008 3:35:45 PM

Will 2 GTX 280s even fit? I read and saw they were pretty huge plus they are kinda $Texas atm. Would 2 9800GTX+ be a better investment? And can you even SLI those?

7/30/2008 6:46:28 PM

^GTX280's are about $400 AR i think, 9800GTX+'s are about $200

i would go 9800GTX+ (or 9800GTX superclocked) in SLI, better bang for buck

[Edited on July 30, 2008 at 6:55 PM. Reason : ;]

7/30/2008 6:54:04 PM

Are the 9800 GTX+ even available to buy yet? I found the MSRP of $299 and a release time of mid July yet tomorrow is August.

7/31/2008 6:00:30 AM

$300, wtf are you on?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130376

7/31/2008 7:14:31 AM

Wow thanks. What I am on is only 5 hours of sleep in two days and I haven't eaten in 8 hours. I fail.
Also, I meant to type $229. The 9800 GTX is dropping to $199.

[Edited on July 31, 2008 at 7:33 AM. Reason : typo.]

7/31/2008 7:29:33 AM

it's been that low for a while now.

7/31/2008 7:39:00 AM

So I'm upping the voltage to my RAM so I can run it at 1066mhz, but the directions say 2.0-2.1 v. Where should I place this with a P45 chipset?

7/31/2008 12:55:48 PM

Quote :

" I think you were looking for this earlier: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=975365"

Memtest won't work on 64-bit machines, anything else out there that will test it?

7/31/2008 1:09:15 PM

memtest is not run inside the operating system, so i don't see how a 32-bit or 64-bit OS would have anything to do with it.

anyhow memtest+ is a more updated version of it:
http://www.memtest.org/

^^start with 2.0v, if that doesn't work, go 2.1v, you should be safe as long as you don't go over 2.3v

[Edited on July 31, 2008 at 1:22 PM. Reason : .]

7/31/2008 1:19:47 PM

i found instructions for the P5K and they set the timings to 5-5-5-15 and 2.1v, so I just went with that.

7/31/2008 2:33:13 PM

So is your computer finally up and running/configured correctly?

7/31/2008 2:54:08 PM

It has been for a while. I use it all the time, just tweaking and reading up about settings when I have the time. For example increasing RAM speed and moving the hard drive from IDE to AHCI.

7/31/2008 3:14:02 PM

I've decided to get a duo processor E8500 775 3.16 GHZ, and now I need a motherboard, but I really have no idea who makes quality Intel mobos. Can someone recommend a good motherboard?

I've had my eye on this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186148

8/3/2008 7:08:33 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043

oh poop. it's a 300 + 900.

[Edited on August 5, 2008 at 3:18 PM. Reason : ^I regret getting my msi mobo.]

8/5/2008 3:12:50 PM

someone buy my antec solo case for their new computer build

[/shameless plug]

8/6/2008 11:37:54 AM

if i didn't already own one i would

someone at work just bought this beast:
Thermaltake ArmorPlus(Armor+) VH6000BWS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133056

[Edited on August 6, 2008 at 11:49 AM. Reason : ,]

8/6/2008 11:48:24 AM

lol, I have the original Armor.

8/6/2008 11:57:11 AM

^me too!

8/7/2008 11:05:15 AM